At this point, there seems little doubt that some sort of United States of Europe is slowly emerging. It’s kind of exciting, like watching a new planet condensing from the clouds and dust of the cosmos. Yet its final form will take years to consolidate, so it’s also pretty nerve-racking. Continental integration is not for the fainthearted, as a young America learned two centuries ago.

But once a critical number of member states have ratified the recently-negotiated pact for stricter fiscal and budget rules – becoming more like America’s member states, nearly all of which are charged with balancing their state’s budgets – then comes the next step. A consensus is forming around the need for job creation and economic growth, and clearly the current austerity regime will not produce that. So we are likely to see some stimulus spending and other policies targeted to help struggling member states.

Then will come a Hamiltonian-like assumption of continental debt, in which Europe will deploy eurobonds, or a debt assumption role for the European Central Bank, or some other form of debt sharing. The end result of this integration process will be some sort of transfer union, in which the better-off states will subsidise the worse-off, much like West Germany has done for East Germany and western Europe for eastern and central Europe.

But what will a European transfer union look like? A look at the United States of America gives a flavour of what is to come. The chart below shows how many dollars of federal funding is received by various American states for every dollar it sends to the federal government in taxes:

A couple of points are worth noting. First, the order of these lists hasn’t changed very much over time. The Good Samaritan states have been handing over beaucoup dollars to their less-fortunate brethren states for decades. And there is no end in sight to this relationship.

Second, one of the peculiar ironies of the American situation is that the tax transfer states that fork out the most cash – California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois – are some of the most left-leaning states. And those receiving the most charity – Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, New Mexico, Alaska, the Dakotas – tend to be the most conservative states. Even more outrageous, red-staters who are the most vociferous critics of government and welfare like to throw mud in the face of their blue-state benefactors on a regular basis.

Gazing into my crystal ball at Europe’s future transfer union, it’s pretty clear that Greece, Portugal and Italy (though perhaps not so much Spain and Ireland) are positioned to be the Mississippi, Alabama and Alaska of Europe. Many of the newer democracies in eastern and central Europe will continue to need assistance as well. And Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and northern Europe in general will be like California, New York and Illinois, perpetually paying out as the price for gaining a union.

Yet that doesn’t mean the Greeks are going to be eternally grateful to the Germans. Quite the contrary, as in the US those shaking the tin cup seem to need to save some face by regularly biting the hand that feeds them.

Given those realities, I’m not surprised that the Germans, Dutch and others have grave doubts about committing to a long-term fiscal relationship in which they will be forever bailing out other member states. Or that they would insist on certain conditions before doing so.

But in time, even the Germans will come to recognise that Germany is greater inside a continent that is stable, not only at its core but in its periphery as well. After all, prospering member states will be importers of German exports. And given Europe’s history, in which weaker regions of the continent have become the epicentres of conflict, Germany would not thrive in a sea of failing member states. The European neighbourhood must be maintained by all, each according to their abilities, or the whole will suffer.

Already the German political class, both left and right, is coalescing around this judgment. The centre-left Social Democrats have committed to some form of United States of Europe, as have the Greens. Even Germany’s former conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl has spoken up. Angela Merkel herself increasingly uses the rhetoric of integration, though the devil is in the details and she is not (yet) there in terms of launching the final solution toward an effective transfer union or expanded ECB mission.

But that hardly seems surprising. It takes time and a crisis or two or three to focus people’s minds and move attitudes. Merkel, to her credit, has been the European leader with a steady hand on the helm, ploughing forward in rough seas while the rest prepared themselves for the necessary sacrifices. Now Europe is halfway across, and everyone agrees they can’t go back.

The ceaseless conveyor belt of integration is pulling everyone inexorably in the same direction. The only way forward is some kind of transfer union and some central bank or financial authority that has the mandate as well as the capacity to guarantee the debt of member states. It’s just a matter of time. But the ride is going to be bumpy, with important elections in France and Germany ahead, a referendum in Ireland, and who knows what else. So fasten your seatbelts.

A provocative, remedy-based perspective on the joint complexities of economic stability and ever expanding technology.–Kirkus Reviews

“Hill hits Silicon Valley darlings like Uber and Airbnb alongside the former online black market Silk Road, right-to-work laws, and factory robots all under the umbrella of “naked capitalism.” He explains how the rise of the “1099 workforce” is not limited to Silicon Valley; more and more traditional jobs in fields like manufacturing are turning to contractors to perform the same tasks full-time employees used to do. In addition to costing workers in benefits and safety nets, misclassifying workers as contractors costs federal and state governments billions of dollars annually in lost tax revenue.” ―Washington Monthly

“For anyone driven crazy by the faux warm and fuzzy PR of the so-called sharing economy Steven Hill’s Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers should be required reading… Hill is an extremely well-informed skeptic who presents a satisfyingly blistering critique of high tech’s disingenuous equating of sharing with profiteering…Hill includes two chapters listing potential solutions for the crises facing U.S. workers…Hill stresses the need for movement organizing to create a safety net strong enough to save the millions of workers currently being shafted in venture capital’s brave new world.” ―Counterpunch

“A growing underclass scrambling to make ends meet at the whim of increasingly picky and erratic employers, that number could balloon to 65 million within 10 years, or about half of the domestic workforce, warns Steven Hill in his troubling new book, Raw Deal. This brand of worker abuse cuts across industries and company size. Hill calls out Uber, AirBnb, Merck, Nissan, and dozens of others. Hill does a nice job of putting it in starker, easier-to-understand ways.” ―Washington Independent Review of Books

“Steven Hill’s book Raw Deal is a red-faced, steam-out-the-ears indictment of sharing apps. Yet Hill offers a pragmatic, almost post-ideological solution: “individual security accounts” for workers. Companies that use independent contractors, or offer scant benefits for employees, would have to add on a certain percentage of their pay as a contribution to those accounts, which would cover health care, unemployment insurance, and more. There’d be a mechanism ― and a requirement ― for companies to contribute to the long-term well-being even of workers who aren’t on their traditional payrolls.” ―Boston Globe

“Raw Deal is a book for its time. Steven Hill perfectly captures the anxiety of the American worker in today’s increasingly digital economy. Hill presents some compelling ideas, the most important being something he calls the Economic Singularity. In this unfortunate tipping point, the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few results in economic implosion because the 99 percent can’t afford to buy anything the 1 percent has to sell. The United States is turning into a nation of 1099 workers who eke out a living driving cars, renting rooms and running errands for people who apparently have better things to do with their time. Throw in self-thinking computers and obedient robots, and there won’t be any work left for plain old Homo sapiens…Hill proposes that we offer 1099 workers a new safety net consisting of tax deductions, individual security accounts and multiemployer health care plans. All good ideas.” ― San Francisco Chronicle

This book is a must read for those concerned about how technology is disrupting the way we work and eroding the social safety net, and how policy makers should respond to ensure that the growing number of workers in the “gig” economy earn adequate benefits.—Laura D’Andrea Tyson, UC-Berkeley and former Chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers

“Steven Hill’s groundbreaking book on the part-time, unstable ‘Uber Economy’ shows how a new sub-economy becomes a work of law-flouting regress undermining full-time work. Remote corporate algorithms run riot!”— Ralph Nader, consumer advocate

For many years, Steven Hill’s analysis, commentary and activism have helped shape our understanding of the U.S. political economy. His latest book, Raw Deal is A riveting expose that shows with alarming lucidity what Americans stand to lose if we don’t figure out how to rein in the technological giants that are threatening the American Dream.–Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation

In Raw Deal, Steven Hill documents in frightening detail the ways in which new forms of work promise to plunge US workers and their families into further economic hardship, risk-assumption, and instability. Fortunately, Hill does not simply anticipate catastrophe; he closes the book with an informed call for institutional reforms that would lessen the negative consequences of these potentially dangerous forms of work. Anyone concerned with US working conditions – whether American workers, worker advocates, labor market scholars, or policy-makers – must read this book .— Janet C. Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, Director, LIS: Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

Praise for Expand Social Security Now

“Read this book before you vote. Few issues are more important to your personal economic future. Steven Hill shows what’s at stake, and he offers solutions that Americans of all stripes can agree on.”—Robert B. Reich, author of “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few”

“Steven Hill has written a barn burner of a book. Or perhaps I should say ‘myth buster,’ because he systematically demolishes the false justifications for slashing Social Security. In place of misplaced animus and misleading arguments, he offers a strong case for dramatically expanding America’s most successful domestic program in an age of rising inequality and widespread financial insecurity.”—Jacob S. Hacker, coauthor of “American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper”, Professor, Yale University

“Steven Hill has written a vigorous defense of Social Security, the country’s most important social program. While most political debate in recent years has focused on ways to cut Social Security or privatize it, Hill goes in the opposite direction and argues for a robust expansion. Hill proposes a Social Security program that would be adequate by itself to support a middle-class retirement.”—Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and author of “Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People”

“Steven Hill has produced a dynamite handbook for angry Americans who seek to take back democracy. The true contest is not Republicans versus Democrats. It is the American people versus Washington. And this is the sleeper issue the people can win. The governing elites in both parties are trying to eviscerate Social Security—arguably the most successful and most popular program created by the federal government. Hill explains why the political insiders and their Wall Street patrons are wrong about Social Security. He shows us how to mobilize to defeat the power elites and expand Social Security rather than destroy it.”—William Greider, author of “Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”

Praise for Europe’s Promise

Financial Times: “Steven Hill is a lucid and engaging writer. He makes you sit up and think.”

The Economist: “In a new book, Steven Hill extols the European social contract for better government services. Life in Europe is more secure, he argues, and therefore more agreeable.”

Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker: “Like a reverse Alexis de Tocqueville, Steven Hill dauntlessly explores a society largely unknown to his compatriots back home.”

Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs: “Europe’s Promise is a timely and provocative book . . . the “social capitalist” policies of European countries represent best practices in handling most of the challenges modern democracies face today.”